2020 in Summary

Hello! Welcome to the post of 2021 here at The Real World According To Sam! Today I want to do something different to kick off this year. I want to recap what we did here in 2020, share some reading stats, and countdown my favorite books from this past year. 

Total Books Read in 2020: 270

Total Books Reviewed in 2020: 44

Total Posts in 2020: 96

My Top 5 Favorite Reads of 2020: 

1. Jurassic Park - Of course one of my favorite books of all-time is going to be at the top of this list. 
2. Dune - This book changed how I saw Star Wars and other works of science fiction that I love. It really makes me appreciate what Herbert did with it. This is one of the series I'm in the middle of that I'm most excited to read. 
3. The Monstrumologist - This is another series that I am really looking forward to reading completely through. Yancey is a master writer and I could not put this book down. I loved it and I can't wait until I get a chance to read the next three books. This is a book I highly recommend and that I can see myself rereading for Halloween every few years. 
4. 12 Years a Slave - I didn't get the chance to talk about this book this year, but I did read it and I loved it. It was such an eye-opening book and it was so balanced in its perspective. This is a primary text to history that I really think more people should know about. I haven't seen the movie, but the book should be a must-read in history classes. I learned so much from this book. 
5. Queen's Shadow - This is a book that I just personally really enjoyed. I liked it so much, my boyfriend and his family bought it for me for my birthday, along with its prequel, which I have yet to read. This isn't by any means the best Star Wars book, but it is one that little me would have loved and that current me is very grateful to have in my collection. This book lets me be a Star Wars fangirl unapologetically. 

Honorable Mention: The One and Only Ivan - I loved this book. It is a great trip souvenir and I'm so glad we picked it up. I greatly enjoyed reading it and then watching the movie. I had a wonderful experience doing that for this blog and it was definitely one of my more fun moments of 2020. This is a book I would happily re-read and recommend. 

My Bottom 5 Reads of 2020: 

1. Bewitching - Choppy, ridiculous, a book that I had to slog through to finish. I never want to read this book again and I definitely never want to see it again. Kendra should have been a really great character to read about and instead her story ended up being a big flop. 
2. Blockade Billy - Hands down one of the worst things I read not just this year, but in my life. The only reason this book isn't my #1 bottom read is because the baseball passages were good. Everything involving playing baseball was fine. Everything that was there to tell the actual "astonishing" story was pretty much garbage. However, if someone said to look at the baseball sections again, I would. My #1 book I would not revisit at all, for any reason. 
3. Zom-B - This book just wasn't all that great. It had some interesting components, but overall it didn't feel long enough, developed enough, and I certainly haven't felt the need to hurry and read the next one. 
4. Dog-Eared - This book I didn't review on the blog, but I did review it on Goodreads. I read a galley of this book on NetGalley and while it is okay, it isn't a book I will feel the need to read ever again. It is a poetry compilation that is focused on dogs, but the compilation spans many years (back to Shakespeare's time even). Why would I buy this book when those older poems are all available with no copyright and when I can just buy a book of dog short stories that will be more compelling? This one really disappointed me. 
5. Pete's Dragon: The Lost Years - This is honestly my most disappointing book of the year. It isn't the worst book of the year, just one that really bummed me out. I had looked forward to reading it for a while and it had so much promise. The pictures are beautiful, the story is interesting, but the errors and lack of quality control just came through way too much. I expected more from Disney Press. 

2020 Releases I Reviewed:

• The One and Only Bob
• Midnight Sun 
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
• The Mall
• The True Story of Zippy Chippy

What 2020 Taught Me About Blogging: 

1. Planning ahead is super important

    

While I was working on content for this year, I would get great ideas. Throughout the middle of the year, I was able to make great plans and stick to a schedule. By the end of the year, I was falling behind and I was only getting more ideas for posts. This only made me upset because by the time had the idea, I had no time to write it in a way I would be happy with, edit, and post. Now I know that I have to plan a lot further in advance and I also have to be willing to put a pin in ideas and tackle them later. It is never too early to start planning posts. 

2. There are not enough days in a week 

FOR THE CONTENT I WANT TO DO. I've come to realize I want to write about more things on my blog. I want to talk about more books, more movies, more things in general. I love talking and I love sharing things. This year I had a set content routine and it helped me plan a lot. Now though, I have more ideas and I am now having to consider how to fit in the other things I want to write. It's a work in progress. If there were more days in a week, I would have more days to do varied content on those days. Instead, I'll have to figure out a balance that keeps me happy. 

3. Breaks are sometimes needed

As I was reading throughout this year, I realized that sometimes I hit lulls in my reading ability and what I want to read. This is partially why I have refused to specialize my blog to any book genre or audience level. I like a wide variety of books. I just love good stories. If I stuck to one genre all the time, I honestly think I would lose my mind. I am the same way with movies. I can't always watch the same type of movie. I have to change it up. How does this apply to blogging? Well, basically I need to plan ahead for if I don't want to read the same age level book or genre type. This applies a lot to Halloween theming like I did this past year. I need to be ready to let myself change up the type of book I read regularly and even potentially change posts to movies or something else, instead of always books. I need to allow myself time to adjust and get into different grooves, without sacrificing content availability. Sometimes I have to read library books instead of any other book on my TBR list and sometimes I just really want to read Star Wars books more than any other book on my list. 

4. Social Media has been my bane

Some of you probably know that this blog has a Twitter and a Facebook page. My Facebook is much more active than my Twitter and honestly, it is a bit of a problem. If I ever want to grow things, I have to be much more active on social media. It gets a little difficult because I don't have a phone, so if I want to post to Twitter, I have to be on my computer. Bookstagram looks awesome too, but again I don't have a phone, so I would have to get an actual physical camera and plan photos more than other users do. I'm not sure if I will ever get into that, but it is something that I have thought about. Often, I'm more busy writing than I am scrolling through my Twitter feed when I'm on my computer I recognize this as an issue and this next year I definitely want to get better about sharing my posts through these outlets. Twitter honestly has been the most lacking part. 

5. I just want to write more 

Something that I always think about is the fact that I need to write more. I need to write more fiction, more short stories, write my novel that I've been talking about for ages, need to write more diverse content. This is honestly just a standard writer's gripe that I have every year. 2020 has just reaffirmed that I really want to do this and so I'm hoping this blog will help me get that writer drive going as we transition into this next year. 

New Things

As usual, I have taken notes on how I have done and what I can do better. I have noted shortcomings, re-evaluated old goals to make new ones, and I also have a new web feature for you. This year, I have a new Tab, labeled as "Calendar". You may have noticed it. This new page holds exactly what it says: a calendar. This calendar will show posts on the days I have them scheduled for. New posts will be added as I plan and complete them. This should be a quick way for everyone to see what is coming up and when. I may add posts, I may have to take some off, but this is to help communicate all of that in an easy way. 

This past month I announced Sam on the Road, a new feature. I am still working on these and you can expect to see one a month, if all goes well.